Taper's Section

If you haven't noticed already, official vault archivist David Lemieux is running a pretty cool feature over at Dead.net called the Taper's Section, where he gives a weekly run-down of notable performances from the Dead's thirty-year history. The features take the form of "This Week In Dead History" and include links to free mp3 downloads of the official vault recordings of the performances referenced. This week there's nearly three hours of music posted, including the mammoth version of "Sugaree" from thirty years ago today that was recently reviewed in this space. There's some other really great stuff in this week's edition, including a few choice nuggets from our little neighborhood: 1977. And if you're just now discovering this feature (like I am), you're in luck because all the previous weeks' editions (dating back to November of last year) are available on the site, with the links to the mp3s intact.

If this is an effort to win back the goodwill of Deadheads following the archive.org controversy, I must admit it's well-played. I certainly hope this excellent feature continues. Check it out.